Under the worldwide carbon neutralization targets, concentrating solar power (CSP) is arousing great attention. With the thermal energy storage (TES), CSP is friendly to the power system operation by supplying controllable renewable energy. The capacities of its solar field and TES are essential parameters for maximizing the profit of a CSP plant. ••A flexible operation model of CSP with EH is proposed.••An explicit model of CSP's profit based on the solar radiation curve and prices is constructed.••The configuration of the CSP plant is optimized through the first-order optimality conditions on the profit function.••The optimal configuration of CSP with high renewable energy is provided in the case study.Concentrating solar powerConfigurationRenewable energyFlexibilityAbbreviation and SuperscriptCSP Concentrating solar powerPV PhotovoltaicSF Solar field section of CSPTES Thermal energy storage section of CSPPB Power block of CSPEH Electric heater of CSPSM Solar multiple, which describes the scale of SF compared to CSP's rated capacityHTF Heat transfer fluidSC/SD Charge/Discharge state of the TESLMP Locational marginal pricee/r+/r (Price of) Energy/Positive/Negative reserveinv InvestmentO&M Operation and maintenanceSubscriptd d-th dayh h-th period of the dayVariables and ParametersD Number of days in the research scopeH Number of time intervals in a dayp Power measured by electric power (MWe)q Power measured by thermal power (MWt)r Solar radiation (MWt)s The heat used to start up the PB of CSP (MWt)A1∼A6 Coefficient in the profit function of CSPI On/off status of PB of CS. 1.1. BackgroundConcentrating Solar Power (CSP) is an emerging renewable energy technique experiencing fast development worldwide [1,2]. Unlike other renewable energy technologies such as wind power or photovoltaic (PV), which are neither fully dispatchable nor entirely predictable, CSP usually has a thermal energy storage device (TES) that can mitigate the variability and uncertainty of the primary energy source from solar irradiation. Furthermore, CSP is friendly to the power system operation in terms of supplying controllable renewable energy and providing flexibility to the power system.CSPs worldwide have been built accompanied by various forms of energy generators. For example, the co-operation of CSP and biomass-fired generation was proposed in Ref. Zhang et al. demonstrated the industrial practice of a CSP plant operating with a coal-fired thermal power plant in Southern Croatia. Recently, along with the zero-carbon targets, the penetration of renewable energy is rapidly growing, which brings increasing technical and economic issues. CSP would become a valuable source to accommodate other intermittent energy. In this regard, there has been increasing research on the planning and operation of CSP with high penetration of renewable energy. Most research takes the maximum revenue of the whole renewable energy generation system or the average cost to supply.
